Gettysburg

Gettysburg is a borough and the county seat of Adams County, Pennsylvania. In 1761, tavern owner Samuel Gettys settled in the area, which was at the crossroads of the Shippensburg-Baltimore and Philadelphia-Pittsburgh roads. The town was settled in 1780, and its boundaries were established in 1786. In 1858, the Gettysburg Railroad completed construction of a railroad line from Gettysburg to Hanover, and the railroad station opened in 1859. By 1860, the town had grown to include 450 buildings, which housed carriage manufacturing, shoemakers, and tanneries. In July 1863, Gettysburg was the location of the decisive Battle of Gettysburg of the American Civil War, in which the second major Confederate invasion of the north was repelled after a bloody battle that cost 27,000 Confederate and 23,000 Union soldiers. On 19 November 1863, at the future Gettysburg National Cemetery, President Abraham Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg Address, officially consecrating the grounds. For the first half of the 1900s, furniture manufacturing dominated local industry, but the industry declined after 1951. In 1942, passenger service to the town on the Gettysburg Railroad ended. However, the town became a major tourist destination due to its historical significance. In 2016, Gettysburg had a population of 7,700 people, with 79.6% being white, 10.9% Hispanic, 5.4% African-American, 1.9% Asian, and 2.2% others.